Last weekend, I won the 2008 Ladrillo de Oro [Golden Brick] Award for the (intentionally) worst article about science fiction in Spanish. It was presented at Spain's HispaCon national convention. The rules required writing a 1000-word article either dressed as a Spanish country bumpkin, or including the word “Maritoñi,” which is short for María Antonia, even though it has no special meaning related to speculative fiction. That didn't stop me.

I decided to present it as the Spanish equivalent for “Mary Sue.” It is not. In Spanish, a “Mary Sue” is a Mary Sue. This article is bad in part due to faulty reasoning.

Here is a translation of the article as well as the original in Spanish.

[Author/translator's note: I've tried to maintain the literary excesses of the original, but because of grammatical differences between Spanish and English, some stupidities just don't translate. I've used the translator's option of substituting similar stupidities.]

Don't dump on Maritoñi by Sue Burke

Obviously, some speculative fiction “authors” know how to write well, but not “all” of them (you know “who” I mean with the “quotation” marks) because plenty of “them,” in fact too many, believe that “they” don't have to study anything, not literature and, of course, not science (WTF! “they” say, I'm writing fiction, not a boring textbook, I'm creating a piece of art, and artists are free!), because “they”'re convinced that “they”'re freed from the complications of reality and above all from the boring classes in high school, and worst of all these “artists” have no freaking clue about what's a Mary Sue: a character who is in reality the alter ego of the “author” (if female, otherwise it's a Gary Stu, but usually “they” are girls/women, and they are what this article will address) and who, in contrast with the “author,” is successful, beautiful, powerful, admired, virtuous, glorious, intelligent (she could have passed the college entry exam in science), loved, talented, important, etcetera: a phenomena encountered in fanfiction, a word with has no Spanish equivalent in spite of a considerable quantity of fiction written by “that” kind of Spanish fan, in which you can encounter the fantasy figure of Mary Sue, which in the language of Cervantes is called Maritoñi and who possesses her own distinguishing characteristics, about which I will expound below.

Every Mary/i/Sue/toñi has uncommon features, usually unusually colored eyes, which in Sue's case tend to be violet flecked with gold, but Toñi's are black, but really truly black, like jet. Her hair is also jetly black, and it's long, as is her public hair. I mean her public hair is black, not long, and it's neatly waxed to create a seductive shape that miraculously never needs a touch-up.

Normally Mary/i has suffered greatly during her childhood. Sue usually grows up in an uncultured, boring little town (an echo of the American and British suburbs where the author lived unhappily) while Toñi is from the poor western Spanish province of Extremadura. And she wasn't adopted, the poor thing. [This is a Spanish political joke.]

These Mary/is enjoy (although sometimes they consider it a curse) not only extraordinary beauty but extraordinary powers, such as the mastery of martial arts, several languages and/or music (various instruments and an unequaled voice). Normally, Sue is also gifted with an exceptional empathy and friendliness that makes everyone her best friend, while Toñi can spend all night enjoying a teenage street-corner drinking party without puking.

But the Mary/i “authors” coincide in selecting what they consider an exquisite name for their creation. For the Sues the cliché is Raven, while the Toñis get something extremely common in Anglo-Saxon culture like Jennifer. Nonetheless, rather frequently both decide to use a name that seems Japanese, like Kudou, even though Mary/i isn't Asian.

We especially find big differences in the plots of Mary/i stories. The Sue type usually has a happy ending (not happy end as they say in Spain because Sue “authors” at least know how to use gerunds even though they can't punctuate to save their lives. Toñi “authors” concur in fatal punctuation.).

In Sueish stories, the beautiful and popular Raven typically saves the hero, if not the entire universe. Sue wants to win, and, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Princess Leia in Star Wars, she can see herself overcoming all the challenges and disasters in her imaginary life with her imaginary gifts, and, as if that weren't enough, she romantically beds the thankful hero. Sue has happy daydreams, although her real life sucks. It's a consequence of her unrealistic culture, which she would call optimistic.

On the other hand, the Toñis live in another world (the Old World) and don't believe that life is a comedy (in the classic sense, as if they had heard of Sophocles) because everyone has told them that life is a tragedy, that victories are false, that success is not within their reach, and that the best they can hope for is to have a good time. And to pass the college entry exams. Jennifer normally dies of injuries in a battle, or of a broken heart, or in an execution, or in a traffic accident, or, best of all, of suicide, possibly at the same time that everyone else dies in a local, worldwide, or galactic war, or in the victory of dark forces or an evil vampire (who is a little like her math teacher) or in an inevitable failure in the fabric of the universe that Jennifer will never understand but, like college entry exams, comes ever closer in this world without God or pity. That is, her imaginary world and her real world suck equally. It's a consequence of her pessimistic culture, which she would call realistic.

In conclusion, the Mary/is have in common the habit of creating a story in which the authors themselves are the heroines and in which they live their dream of a life different from everyday, either better or worse, but in any case more intense and more free, within a fantasy served up in books or on the large or small screen, that offers them everything that their reality lacks, which is excitement without disappointment, adventure without risk, and egoism without reproach, expressed in stories that we can laugh at for their failures in spelling, punctuation, originality, solid plot, and fidelity to the cannon, the same way that the guardians of “literature” (that is, the mainstream, the dominant current, whose custodians believe is the only valid liquid) laugh at speculative fiction in its entirety, be it quality or fanfiction, so we would be equally mistaken to fall into the same trap and dump on our successful, beautiful, powerful, admired, virtuous, glorious, intelligent, loved, talented, important, etcetera bastard daughters, who are named Mary Sue and Maritoñi.

Congratulations! What a cool paperweight!! And I enjoyed your article, including lines such as "It's a consequence of her pessimistic culture, which she would call realistic." , Btw, onne of the most common names for heroines that I've come across is Cat, which is a pity 'cause I really like it. If everyone else wasn't using it, I would!